06 April, 2008

One of the virtues of not being Puritanical about sex

My wife and I watched that 2002 sci-fi western Firefly a while back, along with the film sequel Serenity. It was okay; I much prefer Lost or Battlestar Galactica. The characters of Firefly were fascinating, if the plots were rather ridiculous. The "two by two, hands of blue" backstory was, sadly, never really developed.

It's worth mentioning my favorite scene from the show. It occurred when Inara (the Companion) remarked to Mal (the Captain) in a very condescending tone,

One of the virtues of not being puritanical about sex is not feeling embarrassed afterwards. You should look into it.
The very next scene of Inara shows her alone, sobbing in a corner.*

I rather liked Inara, and thought this was one of the most touching moments of the entire show. I don't recall the last time I've seen such a frank portrayal on television of the consequences of not being "Puritanical" about sex, and I personally found it refreshing. Then again, I probably would, being rather Puritanical about sex myself.

That said, I did liked the other Companion a lot better, "Yo Saf Bridge", the "innocent" blond whose name kept changing depending on whom she married. Too bad she wasn't in the film; she was great fun.



*Amazingly, of all the sites I've found online that reproduce this quote, all of them use it in support of Inara's argument. Not one seems to have found the irony of her statement worth comment. I know I'm odd, but still!

2 comments:

Brandon said...

Yo-Saf-Bridge is definitely a lot of fun. There's a lot of backstory I wish they had had the leisure to develop: why Inara left the Core Planets, the hands of blue, etc. One of the things I wish they had had the time to develop was the backstory to Book: obviously he was a dangerous Alliance man, of some sort, at some point; but we never learn how he had his change of heart.

My favorite scene is the folk song scene in 'Jaynestown'.

jack perry said...

I forgot about the Book backstory. What a great mystery that is!